The ridiculous awards shaming new mums

WE should ALL get an award, not just the ones whose bodies played ball.

Just when you think you've heard it all, you stumble upon something new that makes you wonder what is going on with the world.

I'm talking about The Boobie Awards.

If you just screwed your face up and/or rolled your eyes, join the club.

Before I go ahead and explain, let me preface this by saying I'm a three-time award winner. Apparently, I've earnt a set of platinum boobies, gold boobies, and diamond boobies. And while I'm super proud of my achievements I don't think I'm deserving of any awards.

We can't even trace where or when The Boobie Awards began. There are posts describing them on various websites, and references to the awards in parenting forums in the UK, US and Australia.

But basically, it's a system of 'awards' for each breastfeeding milestone achieved. So my platinum boobies are courtesy of my firstborn, who made it between 18 months and two years, my gold boobies are thanks to my middle child, who decided he preferred cow's milk at one year old, and my diamond boobies are thanks to my daughter, who I weaned when I returned to work around her second birthday.

A post shared by Sarah (@chatterboxsarah) on Mar 24, 2018 at 12:54am PDT

While it's a lovely idea and I get the sentiment, it seems rather silly when there are so many other so many other things in life to be proud of. We don't need to go fueling the divide between breastfeeding mums and formula feeding mums.

How about spending hours sterilising bottles and waking up in the middle of the night and actually WALKING THROUGH THE HOUSE to put together a bottle of formula? Some call me wonderful for breastfeeding, I see it as lazy. No way was I getting out of bed to feed my babies on no sleep!

Or how about even just feeding a child, whether it's from your breast, the bottle, or the tears of a thousand unicorns.

Yes, breastfeeding can be tough, challenging and both physically and mentally exhausting, but so is raising a child.

So yay for me. My eldest is 10 years old, so I'm claiming myself that rhodochrosite (eight year) award because raising a child deserves a medal, not my body's ability to breastfeed.

What award will you be claiming for yourself?

This article appeared on Kidspot and has been republished here with permission.